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Rusty Wallace opts out of Las Vegas trip, but still has a soft spot for the Blue Deuce

November 29, 2012

Rusty Wallace, driving the No. 2 car in 2003, chose not to go to Las Vegas to celebrate with Roger Penske and Brad Keselowski, but he said he still has a lot of respect for all involved with his old car. Photo by LAT PHOTOGRAPHIC

Somewhere between Aisle 3800 and the engine blocks at the Performance Racing Industry Trade Show on Friday, Rusty Wallace was clearly enjoying the chatting up vendors and pausing for the occasional autograph requests. But even as he worked his way over to the new Late Model trailer built for him by Bruce High Performance Transporters – on display a few rows over – and waited for his children to rejoin him for their jaunt to the airport, the former Sprint Cup champion was feeling as if there was some place he should have been.

Wallace had a seat waiting for him at the head table at the Sprint Cup banquet in Las Vegas, he said, but he had chosen to join his son, Steven, and other children for a family junket to the annual Snowball Derby Late Models race at Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola on Saturday. Wallace’s team had built for his son, who won the race at age 17 in 2004, a “rocket ship,” Wallace said. But still, part of him yearned to be on the edge of the spotlight as Brad Keselowski, driver of the No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge still very associated with Wallace, was celebrated as champion. It's Keselowski's first Sprint Cup title, and the first for team owner Roger Penske as well.

“Roger [Penske] called me up and said, ‘I want you to sit at the head table with me and have a great time’,” Wallace said. “I said, ‘Roger, I would love to, but I’m going to Snowball Derby with my kid.’ That’s exactly what happened.

“[Keselowski] has been really nice to me. I sent him a congratulatory note and he fired right back to me. He said, ‘Man, driving the blue deuce is a real honor.’ I said well, ‘You’re driving the hell out of it.’ I appreciate it. They’ve been wonderful to me, and I feel odd being here, not being there, but this thing we did.”

Wallace said he feels a kinship with Keselowski not only because of their stewardship of the same blue race car and their relationship with Penske, but because of their similar upbringing in racing. Wallace considers the decidedly new-age 28-year-old with the 342,850 Twitter followers unmistakably old-school.

“He’s a great kid. He’s wide open. He’s got the right guy tutoring him, too, Roger,” Wallace said. “Not too far out of control. The thing I like about that kid is he kind of came up like I did, building his own cars, painting his own cars, towing them to the racetrack, his family involved, understands the car totally. He’s not just a driver that only just drives. He can do the whole thing, and that’s what’s going to help him.

“That’s what won him the championship in my opinion.”

But although he clearly likes him, Wallace said he’s still not sure if he understands the sometimes quirky, sometimes insightful, sometimes unpredictable Keselowski.

“I talked to Jimmie Johnson the other day and Jimmie said, ‘I don’t understand him yet’,” Wallace shared. “I don’t get what he is because he’s a great driver, he knows what he’s doing with the car, but his personality is way different than most people. I’m not calling it odd – a lot of drivers, some drivers have called it weird. We don’t, but I call him different and hard to understand. He’s a real thinker. He’s thought about more things ... he was one of the first guys to think about Bristol, when you come down pit road at Bristol, the length of the timing marks and watch the car accelerate like hell and everyone goes “He’s speeding!” and NASCAR goes “No, it’s not triggering our machine.” So little stuff they do, it’s like, “Where the hell do they think of this?” He’s a hell of a thinker.”

He’ll have to think of someone to take that empty chair at the banquet tonight.